Roses in the Springtime – a Primer Level Solo

Roses in the Springtime

I’ve had a few teachers ask me if I would re-post Roses in the Springtime, a primer level solo with the philosophy that money can’t buy everything. One of my students took my poem very literally, and was upset that I would give all my money away! She didn’t quite understand poetic license!

Anyway, there are some skips in this melody, and I put the right hand in middle D position. If that bothers you, change the fingering. This song is very pretty with an improvised broken chord teacher duet. It is pentatonic, with no half steps, so Kodaly teachers can sing it with hand signs.

I would like to thank everyone for your heartwarming response to my newly published books on Sheet Music Plus. I had no idea I would sell so many books so quickly! Please let me know if your students enjoy them.

A Snail’s Gotta Do What a Snail’s Gotta Do

Snail, Snail

Recently I sang this with a preschool student to help him find his singing voice. After numerous questions that only a 4-year-old can ask, such as, “Why did the snail want to go around the water pail?” and “What is a water pail?” he started giggling and told me he “liked this song.” Trying hard not to get distracted, I told him that was just what snails like to do. Then he asked me to teach him how to play it on the piano.

So, always ready to please my students (preschool children are so more easier to please than high school students!), I wrote it out for the piano. I have to admit I get a little thrilled when a student asks to play something. This time his questions were about my drawings. (“Why is the snail smiling? Why is he green and orange? Why is the water blue? What does a snail eat? What if he falls in the water pail?”). I hope you have a sense of humor because you need it with children.

Getting back to piano, notice that Snail, Snail is played with the third finger of each hand. This is my sneaky way to help little students learn to brace their third finger and drop into the keys. If you have a beginner who is having trouble developing a rounded hand shape, maybe this piece will help. If you are a parent helping your child, be sure to drop into the keys, not lift individual fingers. Try to help them keep all their fingers rounded and not poking out this way and that. Suggest that their hand is holding a cute green snail and we don’t want to crush it!

You can learn about the braced finger from Nancy and Randall Faber’s Piano Adventures and My First Piano Adventures. If you’re not sure how to teach the concept, check out their videos. [On their homepage click Teacher Guides, > My First PA Tour and Videos, > Video Lesson Guide, and watch Hangin' on a Fence Post.]

What Will I Say On Halloween? a beginning piece

What Will I Say On Halloween?

I wrote this for a new student right after her first lesson. She saw the all the Halloween sheet music around my studio,  and wistfully asked me if she could play a Halloween piece.  Of course I had to draw one before her next lesson because she is so darling and wanted one so badly!

Since this student is on the first pages of her book, I wrote it without notes, just finger numbers. I am sharing it with other teachers because it was too much work for just one student! She was having a little trouble with finger numbers, so I’m going to put an pumpkin ring on her 4th finger.

It is intended to be in 3 meter, played on the black keys with the left hand. The last note in each line is a dotted half note. If you tap out the rhythm on your piano cover, students will get a feel for how it goes.

So if you have a beginner or a preschool child of your own,  please feel free to use it. Maybe the ending will encourage your  students to compose their own song! What will they say at the end?

Chocolate Valentines and other Valentine Piano Music

Chocolate Valentines pre-reading

Here is a little Valentine’s piece for your beginning students who have learned how to use all 5 fingers. It’s very easy because there are no skipping notes. It is good for sight-reading because the second line is a little harder for them.

I have several students who are beginning readers and I wanted to re-use my graphic, so I made an on-the staff version.

 Chocolate Valentines on-the-staff

If you are looking for more Valentine’s Day material, a few years ago I posted several arrangements of folk songs we sang when I taught school, as well as some Valentine themed activities. The links are below:

Love Somebody Pre-reading

Love Somebody Primer (on-the-staff)

Love Somebody Level 2 (8th notes and some hands together)

There’s a Little Wheel a-Turning in my Heart (late elementary)

Write a Valentine’s Song (a composing activity)

Valentine Notes (a worksheet to write notes on a grand staff)

Valentine Note  worksheet  (draw lines to connect notes to the staff)

Rhythm Heart Beats (for dictation)

More Rhythm Heart Beats

If you want to keep up with other Valentine’s Day material I may post, you can subscribe to this Word Press blog at the top. It is completely private and you can unsubscribe any time.

Enjoy!

It’s October

It’s October

I wrote this  piece  for a new student because  I wanted something special to play at her second lesson. She was delighted with it.  

If you’ve never seen piano material like this before, this is a pre-reading piece that can be used at the first or second lesson. The student plays on the group of three black keys, moving down toward the bass.  If you need more help, check out some of the newer piano methods at your local music store. I use My First Piano Adventures for pre-school and first grade children,  and Book A of that series contains a lot of pre-reading material.

No wonder students get confused when learning to play the piano. The numbers and words go one way (right), while the left  hand moves down the keys the other way.  In a few weeks it is normal for most students, but others have get confused.  It is something to think about when we try to understand why some children have so much trouble learning to read music. Reading music presents so many challenges for young children! 

If you want some more music for the first lesson when students have not yet learned quarter notes, I have posted a few.  From my website you can download:

What the Robin Said to the Worm,

What the Worm Said to the Robin, 

 Fourth of July, and 

 Canada Day.

In addition, there is a lot of pre-reading music on my website using quarter, half, and whole notes. The ones above use only finger numbers.

Hey, Mr. Mummy

Hey, Mr. Mummy

I don’t know how these little ditties come in my head, but my students like them and I hope some of yours will, too. If so, let me know. All I have to go by are your emails and comments, and I really appreciate those! Some of you have sent pictures, and that is so much fun for me!

This one was especially challenging because I had never attempted to draw a mummy before. I’ve done frogs, ducks, pumpkins, turkeys, but never a mummy. Except for a few older things still on my website that I keep forgetting to update, I don’t use clip art because I want a consistent look, and also I’m not quite sure about the copyright issues.

I  added a real simple teacher duet to this piece, so you will not have to improvise one.

Last year a student performed this,  and we made it longer by repeating it an octave higher. If you are having a Halloween recital, you might want to try that with this one or some of the pieces I posted earlier.

Hot Cross Buns for Pre-reading

 

Hot Cross Buns

I made the notes very large on this, probably because I have been having so much eye trouble that I could barely see the computer screen. Rather than shrink the notes down,  I decided to leave them big for my young beginning students.

How do you like my drawing of the hot cross buns? I hope they are drawn right.  Those of you from the UK or wherever they are common can let me know.  I’m not really an artist but I like to pretend!

Now I have a great new pair of computer glasses and I hope all will be fine for a while. 

Do you think I should post the one I made for the left hand?

Ed: After I posted this, I noticed a mistake in the last 2 measures, and I have corrected them.

Jazzin’ on the Soccer Field

Jazzin’ on the Soccer Field

I wrote this piece about 4 years ago for a special student and it was up on my website for a while. Recently I revised it for another student, changing some of the rhythm notation to make it easier to read. I also added some more dynamics and articulations that I had my student  play, but were not notated. After I compose a piece, the last thing I want to do is go back and add all the fingerings, articulations, and dynamics. However necessary it is, I find it very tedious and boring. I would rather just add that stuff when the student is learning it, but that certainly doesn’t help others who might want to play it!

To be honest,  I really don’t care how you articulate it as long as it has a jazzy sound. (I am not one of those jazz experts who can tell you exactly how Duke Ellington and all the other real jazz players do it. It’s hard enough to remember the different styles in classical music. )  It would be fine, too, to change things around and improvise a little.  But if  you use it in a  festival or some other judged event, you have to play it like it’s written and you really need all the bells and whistles so the judge has something to write about!

I’ll leave it up for a few months, so print it now if you want it. If you printed it a few years ago, you might try this version and see which one is easier to read. If you see any mistakes or some better way I should notate it, please let me know right away so I can revise it.

The Bulldozer

The Bulldozer

If you have been following this blog for while, you know that I have a special, cute, red headed beginning student who loves for me to compose songs for him. He parades into the room, looks for his footstool, and gets right to work.

Starting on the black keys we progressed slowly, learning the names of the keys, how to hold the hands, how to drop into the keys, left hand and right hand, finger numbers, and all the other things we teach beginning students.  I  wrote one song a week for him for many weeks, mirroring what he liked and his favorite activities. My student was very young and could not sit to practice for too long , so we took our time and leisurely went through his first book,  My First Piano Adventures.  Now he is learning to read notes on the staff, and thanks to a great background, he is doing very well. But I have a nostalgic, bittersweet feeling, because I know that period of his life is gone and he is growing up. It is the same feeling we have when we drop off our children for the first day of kindergarten. We’re happy and sad at the same time!

This was the last pre-reading piece I wrote for him.  He was thrilled to play hands together and he loved the sound of the open fifths and the minor key. A lot of practice drumming this out on the piano cover helped to get hands together, as well as all the rhythm activities we have been doing for the past 9 months. He sailed through the skipping notes because we did a lot of preparation. This is a great song to memorize and play for others because it sound impressive. My student repeated it an octave lower for a longer piece.

If your student has trouble with the skipping notes, play them in the air and on the piano cover before playing on the keys. Unless your student is older, this should not be one of his first pieces. Wait until he is ready.  

Some teachers do not think it is good to spend so much time on pre-reading. But I would like to point out that it took weeks for this student to develop the coordination to play with the correct fingers consistently.  Other teachers wonder why start piano so early if it take so long to get anywhere.  Why not wait until they can learn it faster? But he enjoys his lessons so much, and loves to play. This alone is a great motivator for him and a good ego boost. Plus, there is no doubt in my mind that the earlier children are exposed to rhythm and musicality, the easier they catch on, just like learning a foreign language. I can guarantee that this student will have no rhythm problems when he is older, unlike many of our students who start at a later age. If boys are playing impressive sounding pieces by the time they are in the later elementary grades, they are much more likely to stick with piano.

The words and art from this song is recycled from my book Sunny Solos. In that book this piece is on the staff with a different melody.  My daughter was able to draw and color the bulldozer in about 5 minutes. I wish she could do all my art!

To print this song, go to my website, click *music*,  scroll down to SP013 and click *download*.

Poor Fuzzy Wuzzy

Poor Fuzzy Wuzzy

I used to have a lot of the pieces from my book Sunny Solos up on my website, but I took them down to make room for other things. I’ve had a request to re-post Poor Fuzzy Wuzzy, so here it is.

This is a RH only piece in D minor.  My students are quite used to the thumb on middle D, but if your students are not and you are branching out of middle C position, have them read by intervals. This piece only has steps and repeats, which is easy.

Here is a hint for new (and newish) teachers. I’ve found that students usually don’t have reading problems until they start playing skips. So if you want to try music out of middle C position, start with the ones that only move by steps. If you do, your students will  do so much better later on when they get to skipping notes out of middle C position. 

There are no expression suggestions on this, except to start “sadly”.   Instead,  I ask the students to write them in the music. After singing the words and tapping the rhythm, I ask the students if there is a place in the music they would like to add another expression and maybe speed up, and of course they love to speed up in the 7th measure. If the student can write fairly well, they can write the word “happily” above the 7th measure. All the children understand that Fuzzy isn’t really sad, but he’s just “happy to be Me.” This is part of the message I try to promote in my studio that we are all different, but special in our own way. If you ask your young student how he is special, you may get to know your student a little better.

This piece is good for the kindergarten and 1st grade set. My daughter is the artist on this one!